New Delhi, July 06: With Justice Liberhan submitting his report on the Babri Masjid demolition after nearly 17 years, Uma Bharti, who was in the frontline of the agitation for a Ram temple at Ayodhya and is an accused in the demolition case, maintains that those who led the agitation must now not disown the responsibility for it.
In an interview to The Indian Express, Bharti spoke of “Ram ki ladai” and “Roti ki ladai” being “simultaneous” and “equal”. At the same time, she said: “Hamne do baar Ram ke naam par malai khai hai, ab jail ki hawa bhi khaani chahiye (We tasted power twice because of Ram, now we must be willing to take the punishment).”
She denies allegations of a conspiracy to demolish the Masjid and blames the then Narasimha Rao government for not allowing an “emotional outlet” to the assembled crowd and cadres on December 6, 1992.
“But we called them there (to Ayodhya),” she said.
When Bharti, the BJP’s most conspicuous rebel who formed the Bharatiya Janshakti Party in 2006, says “we” she means “the Sangh school of thought — BJP, Shiv Sena, and I” though “I am only a small component, my party is still in the cradle”.
Almost two decades later, there is no closure, she says, to the Ramjanmabhoomi “problem”. She disagrees with those who say it has gone away or that the nation has moved on. “Even today, it is there, like embers that can flare up again… Hold a referendum or an election on this issue alone, even Congressmen will vote for a Mandir.
But the moment, she says, is finally right for a solution. And it requires the Manmohan Singh government to take the lead. Because “I think the time when we are not in power is the time to do it.
If there is a BJP government, others will not be restrained, even our own workers will not be restrained. Muslims will not listen to us. They will listen to those who they feel are on their side.
The BJP cannot find a way out on the temple issue, but Manmohan Singh can.” She has been talking to Muslims, she says, and they want a solution — “but not through us”.
“I have great respect for Manmohan Singh” says Bharti, “I may oppose him ideologically but I really appreciate him.”
The Manmohan Singh government, she says, must revive the process begun and abandoned during the regimes of V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s last phase in government in 2003. The government, she says, must guide the issue onto a “non-political platform”.
–Agencies